'Methodist millworker Thomas Wood attended a school where there was only one book, the Bible, which was never read beyond the first chapter of St John. Therefore he later "read everythig I could lay hands on", which was precious little... He worked his way through most of the library at an independent Sunday school, and joined a mechanics' institute for 1 1/2d a week. His reading, though "very heterogenous" and undirected, could be quite intensive, as when he devoted almost a year to the six volumes of Rollin's Ancient History. That "left an impression on my mind which 40 years of wear and tear has not effaced".'